The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
Montgomerie’s 600 strong
Golf: Job interview on Turnberry links led to long and distinguished career
Colin Montgomerie will celebrate his 600th Euro-pean Tour event on his own course in this week’s Turkish Airlines Open in Belek.
Only one player still competing on the main tour has played more events than the Scot – 2016 Ryder Cup captain aspirant Miguel Angel Jimenez, who will contest his 642nd event this week.
Montgomerie said: “When I look back, Ihave to pinch myself when I think that formy 600th event it’s not only on a course I designed but one in Turkey. If someone had said that all theway back at the start, I’d have said they were pulling my leg.
“It’s been a long road, having started in Switzerland back in 1987 and, considering that I’m such a poor flier, I think I have probably flown to 500 of them, which is pretty astonishing. I’m a better flier now.
“At the same time, when you are bouncing around the skies coming back from Singapore or Australia, I still wonder about what I am doing. So it’s been a great journey and I don’t know how many players have reached 600e vents on the European Tour, but it’s a milestone and a nice one.”
Montgomerie could have easily spent his career working for sports management and marketing company IMG instead of forging a career which produced eight European order of merit titles and more than £20million in prize money.
He said: “We all have a time in our lives where you think back about being in the right place at the right time and for me that was when I went for a job interview at Turnberry just after Greg Norman had won the Open there in 1986.
“I played the back nine with Peter German and Ian Todd, two executives of IMG at the time. I came back in 30, I think, though I was just watching my Ps and Qs as it was a job interview trying to manage the likes of Nick Faldo,
“Considering that I’m such a poor flier I think it’s pretty astonishing”
Sandy Lyle, Seve Ballesteros, Greg Norman and Nick Price at the time.
“But after we’d finished our round, Peter and Ian looked at each other, turned to me and said, ‘Colin, you’re not going to work for us; weare going to work for you’.
“That changed my life. I went to the tour school at La Manga in 1987, qualified and found myself on the tour.
“So here we are, 600 tournaments later on a course that carries my name.
“I have about 20 golf courses withmy name on it around the world from China, Bahrain and Dubai to Carton House in Ireland and, of course, Rowallan Castle in Scotland.”